


to the stranger called father

by shadowdance



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Child Abandonment, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5701684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowdance/pseuds/shadowdance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eponine loves her father, or at least so she thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to the stranger called father

**Author's Note:**

> Mild spoilers (?) I find it interesting Eponine hates her father, but isn't delved into much except in her dad support. (PSA: don't do anything Eponine does in this fic, that'll only end badly.) There's no accent over the E because I was a lazy bum and I never got around to doing it; maybe one day i'll go back and edit it or so.  
> eponine's other parent is supposed to be left vague but it's meant to be Camilla.

* * *

 Eponine loves her father.

He always returns to her looking somewhat sullen, so she climbs up on his lap and giggles brightly at him, and his eye tends to light up when he scoops her in his arms. He lets her ride on top of his shoulders and gives her random gifts from his work and sometimes, after dinner, they read together. She falls asleep on his lap a lot, and it's nice, a sense of familiarity of his hand stroking her back as she drifts off. Often, though, she wakes up in tangled bedsheets, her shoes off and her father already long gone. 

But she knows that he'll return to her in the evening, and so she waits.

__

 

Eponine loves her father, even though one night he comes back from work all tired and gritty and not in the mood to read with her. But she doesn't protest. Instead, she lies on the floor flipping through old books as her father talks in hushed tones with her mother. She doesn't pay attention to that conversation, because Zero told her it was an adult thing and she wouldn't understand.

Her ears still catch snippets of the conversation, like her mother hissing, "Zero, what are we going to do?" and her father replying with equal urgency, "I don't know." It kind of worries her, but she knows in the end that everything will be resolved. Her father always fixes everything.

Later, Zero comes to her room to say goodnight and he looks tired when he does, rubbing his face and sighing heavily. He says, softly, "Eponine, you know that I love you a lot, right?"

She wonders why he's asking this. "Of course."

For the first time that night, his lips thin in a smile. "Okay. Go to sleep, now."

She nods and snuggles under the covers, and the last thing she sees before darkness fills her room is her father, looking almost ready to cry.

__

 

Eponine loves her father, so when he rouses her three days later in the late night or early morning - she can't tell which - she doesn't argue when he makes her put on her shoes and pull on a cloak.

When she steps outside the air is biting at her neck, howling in her ear; she shivers and presses against her father for warmth. Zero takes her hand in his, and they set off together, down a dark and cobbly road. There is little to no light for most of the walk, and it would scare Eponine if her father was not beside her. In contrast, Zero looks nervous, perhaps the only time she's ever seen him look so, shifting his head around to make sure no one is following them. Under his cloak, Eponine is able to make out something long and lean against his back, but she doesn't know what it is and she doesn't inquire about it. She doesn't ask about anything, really, since their walk is only silence, just interrupted by the sounds of an owl hooting.

They walk for what seems like hours, until Eponine is stumbling over herself and she's trying to focus on the road ahead. When she sees a small spark in the distance, she grows vaguely curious until she and Zero near it, and she is able to see her mother, holding a lamp close to her face. The orange light patterns against her face, giving a ghoulish look on her features.

"Zero." Her voice is curt.

He nods at her. "I know, not much time," he grumbles, and he tugs on Eponine's hands, pulling her behind a pair of iron-clad gates. "Let's go, Eponine."

He takes her to a house; it is small and cozy and reminds Eponine of their own place. Except…this place looks more empty. Less homestead, not cluttered with books and expensive items that her father has "borrowed". 

"Are we staying here, Daddy?" she asks, blinking up at him. He isn't looking at her; he _won't_ look at her.

" _You're_ staying here," he replies. "There are some villagers down the way, they'll be taking care of you. I'll have more answers when I come back, okay?"

He makes it sound like he's going away for awhile. Like she's on her own for awhile, a mere toddler living by herself and trying to work out life, alone. Eponine blinks, fear coursing through her veins. She tries to say something, but she feels paralyzed, like she can't speak. Like she can't move.

Zero crouches down in front of her. "Just don't resort to stealing," he warns. "I love you, Eponine."

He kisses her head and then he's gone, traveling out the door and through the main path. When Eponine runs towards the entrance and flings it open, she sees nothing but the night, weaved in the hills.

__

 

Eponine loves her father, and that's why she spends her first days in the Secluded Realms, sitting near the entrance. Her knees drawn up to her legs, wide cerulean eyes studying the iron bars, she waits there all day, so sure that her father will come back and sweep his arms around her and say,  _I'm sorry I kept you in here, Eponine, you can accompany me now,_ but he never does.

The villagers in the Secluded Realms try to coax her away. Their children frolic in the fields and ask Eponine to accompany them, but she declines, because her mind keeps telling her  _Zero is coming back today, wait for him._ They give her a funny look, but they let her be, waiting at the doors. Alone.

Eponine should not feel lonely. She is not alone in this foreign place, because the villagers help her and she is the one who declines spending time with them. And yet she waits there, alone and sad and _missing her family_.

__

 

Eponine misses her father, so when he rarely stops by she runs up into his arms and soaks the attention he gives her, clings to the few minutes he has to spare in the Realms. The long explanation Zero promised never comes; he only says that it's dangerous, do not resort to stealing like he did, and everything will be fine, just fine. He's always gone before anyone else could see him, which leaves Eponine believing that the moments never happened, it was only a figment of her imagination. She's got a wild one, a kind villager often remarks now and then. A wild, but creative, imagination. Probably because of all those books stacked in her house. She won't let anyone touch them.

One night, during a full moon, she pulls an old one from the top. It was her father's favorite book, and that's why the pages are so tattered, torn at edges and crinkled. When Eponine smoothes the crevices out, the sound seems loud, echoing among the lonely house. (It's not her home, it could never be her home; it's just a house, a place of convenience where she lives.)

She reads this book the most, fingers tracing the pages. She's heard this tale so many times she has memorized it, but it's one of the only familiar things in this house. So she reads it, under the bright moonlight, until the pages lull her to sleep, comforting her in which they'll still be there when she awakens.

__

 

Eponine misses her father, but she pries herself away from the gates after a few days. The chances of him showing up are improbable as of late, and the Realms are teeming with people and forests. There is a lot more than what meets to the eye, so it seems.

She, gradually, befriends other children who claim they are from Nohr. Not the Secluded Realms Nohr, but _actually_ Nohr, the place with dark spiral castle and essentially the wasteland, the place she knows as home. She meets a young boy, perhaps around her age, who claims his father is a Prince of Nohr. Eponine just nods and picks at her dress - she finds out that day she's not real good with talking to other boys, because her hands get clammy and she spews random gibberish. 

It's kind of weird, in all actuality. In a sense where Eponine is discovering herself, a personality unfolding, and her father isn't even here to see it. 

Strange.

__

 

Eponine misses her father. She distracts herself, though, by befriending a girl in the woods named Velour. She's part-garou, kind of moody and occasionally rude, but also unbothered by silence and there is plenty to go around between them.  Sometimes, they ask each other questions about their old lives, but sporadically, rarely. Eponine is more likely to ask Velour, and even though Velour isn't nice about answering, it's better than nothing. 

Once, they are sitting on a hill together, on a clear day, when Velour suddenly asks, "Did your father put you here too?" When Eponine turns to look at her, she is staring at her feet, as though she has said nothing.

"Yes," Eponine answers, because it's the truth and she has nothing to hide. Velour tugs at the red cloth, shriveling into the cloak; her eyes are like lantern lights, bright and disconcerting.

"Do you miss your father?" she asks, and Eponine opens her mouth to say yes, she does, very much and everyday. But then she looks into Velour's eyes again, and rethinks her answer.

She has not seen her father for a long time. He hasn't bothered to check up on her; it's like he's all but forgotten about her. And Eponine can still conjure his face into mind, the eyepatch and the mocking smile, but she wonders - does he still smile like that, does he still wear the eyepatch? And right now - does he realize _he has a daughter_ , and does he still love her, even if he never comes to see her?

"I don't know," she says out loud; there is a lump in her throat now and it's incredibly painful to swallow. "I don't know him, so I don't know what to miss."

__

 

Eponine doesn't know her father anymore, and it throws everything out of perspective.

She has heard from villagers that family is what is most important. If it is so, than why does her father never visit her? Why is she here, practically abandoned? Her father has given her no answers. She has to put together the puzzle pieces when there are hardly any. It kind of hurts her brain.

She doesn't know, she doesn't know. It hurts her, slices through her in white-hot pain, right through her heart. Eponine throws a hand over her eyes and bitterly, bitterly, tries to wash those thoughts out of her brain.

(It doesn't work.)

__

 

Eponine doesn't know her father, so certainly all those lessons he taught her mean nothing, right? Surely.

She steals a couple of apples from a nearby house. It's not much, and certainly the family doesn't notice it, but there's a thrill of exhilaration rushing through her as she tucks them under her cardigan, carries them along her way. She takes one out and bites into it, and closes her eyes. Zero probably wouldn't have approved, but she doesn't know that for certain.

She runs into Velour in the woods, and wordlessly hands her the apple. Velour raises an eyebrow, turning the fruit in her hands. "You stole these?"

Right, she can smell it or something. Eponine shrugs, takes another bite out of hers. "It's okay, they won't know."

Velour sighs, tossing the apple back and forth in her hands. "What if your father finds out?"

Eponine shrugs again, offering a confident smile. "He won't know," she says confidently. "And besides, I don't know what he would do, so…"

She expects a rebuttal from Velour as she turns away, but the wolf-girl says nothing, letting Eponine head out. She can feel Velour's eyes on her, all the way back to her house.

__

 

Eponine doesn't know her father, so that's why it's so upsetting when she looks at herself in the cracked glass of a mirror one day and literally _gasps_.

She is tall and lean, but her hands are small, some kind of a strange growth rate. Her hair falls in long locks now, flowing over her shoulders and down her back, and her facial features are smoothing out - her eyes are bluer and rounder, and her mouth is small and upturned in a frown. She can't be _her_ , but when Eponine twists to the side the girl in the mirror copies her, their expressions alike. Eponine drops to her knees, shaking, and the girl on the other side does so as well.

Her childhood has been wasted, Eponine thinks, clapping her hand to her mouth. Years and years of what could've been are gone, blended together to make her a teenager who has only been alive for seven years - that's just _sick_.

What kind of father puts his child in a world where she ages to the point where she could be older than him?   
(The answer is plain to see now: a father who regrets having a child, a father who is eager to have his child age up so he could be rid of her.)

Eponine looks back at her reflection, and is startled to see that her cheeks are moist.

__

 

Eponine no longer cares for her father. He doesn't care for her, so why should she for him? It's really _unthinkable_ , honestly. She doesn't think she can stand calling him father anymore - he was nothing of the sorts to her. And her mother is no better - she might even be worse, because her face escapes Eponine's mind and that's truly an awful thing, for a girl to not know what her mother _looks_ like. She, utterly, blames both of her parents.

At night, she dreams of Zero, shaking his head at her. He is talking, but something loud keeps drowning him out. Dimly, Eponine thinks she hears him say,  _You've got it all wrong, all wrong._

 _What do I have wrong?_ She challenges.  _What do I have wrong, in the fact you abandoned me here, left me to fend for myself and grow up like this?_

When she wakes up she has no more answers than she did before. But it's not like she was expecting any.

__

 

Eponine doesn't care for her father. She refuses to speak of him at all, and all of his good lessons he has taught her shrivel away in her mind, forgotten. She starts to steal, sometimes for her food and the thrill of adventure, other times for merely sport. Velour only sighs when this happens; she shakes her head and refuses whatever Eponine offers her.

Eponine hides Zero's favorite book under her bed. She wants to burn it, desperately let the remains of her past go up in smoke, but something stops her. She tells herself it's a part of her childhood, which is not a lie; but another part of her knows that it's a reminder of the little girl who stayed up and stared at the moon and kept wishing and waiting for her parents to return to her, knowing she was loved. And Eponine can't throw that part of her away, no matter how much she wants to.

__

 

Eponine doesn't care for her father.

It is with this resolve that she perks up one day, decides to leave the Secluded Realms - he no longer comes, so why should he care? He won't know that she's gone. And Eponine is getting so, so, tired of losing her life here.

She smuggles a brown bag from the nearby house and puts food, water, and, after a minute of hesitation, the old book in it. She stares at herself in the mirror, fingering her long locks, and instinctively, her fingers twist together, weaving together her hair into two braids. Eponine hesitates, and gropes for an old headband that her mother had once given her as a gift. She doesn't want to wear it, but it holds her hair back and that's all that's important. She smiles at herself in the mirror, and pulls on a rosy cloak, shrinking under its hood.

No one sees her speed her way through the woods, eagerly towards the entrance of the Secluded Realms. At the gates, Eponine pauses, tugging at her hood. It only hits her now what she's going to do; leaving a place that has been the only trace of familiarity to her for a long, long time.

But on the other hand, she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life there. Eponine regains her composure, and is about to slip through the gates when she hears a voice.

"Eponine, what are you doing?"

Velour melts from the shadows, her eyes wide and lips set down; she looks disappointed, and it makes Eponine want to laugh, but she doesn't. She doesn't want to make a sound to draw attention.

So she shoulders her bag and says, "I'm leaving," and Velour draws her eyebrows together in shock.

" _Leaving_?"

Eponine shrugs. "Yeah. I want to see what's outside these Realms."

Velour's eyes widen; she looks like she thinks the idea is preposterous, that it's a stupid idea to leave realms that have protected them for so long. But there's a difference between them - Velour is a good girl, and she loves her family. Eponine has played the good girl persona for so long that her body is weary of it, and she doesn't care for her family.

"Your father," Velour says, and her eyes narrow back down, harden like stone. "What will  _your father_ say, Eponine? He's not going to be happy with you at all."

No, he won't, but Eponine doesn't care. If he really was happy with her, wouldn't he have spent his life with her? They're not a family, they're not a father-daughter pair; they're two messed up people who are only strung together by blood. They don't love each other; Eponine, at least, doesn't love him. She _hates_ him, for practically abandoning her and leaving her clinging to a false hope.

"I don't care," Eponine says, and slips through the gates. "I don't _care_ , Velour. I _hate_ Zero."

She expects Velour to try and make her stay, but the garou only sighs, wrapping her fingers around the bars. "Fine," she sighs, "I can't stop you. Try and not to get yourself killed with this attitude, okay?"

Eponine opens her mouth to protest, but Velour backs away until blackness shrouds her, wraps her around until all Eponine can see her eyes. And she watches those fade away, like distant lights, until she can see nothing but fog and night.

(Eponine curses, because  
it makes her think of her father, and hate rushes through her veins.)

__

 

Eponine hates her father, so when some guy wearing a red cape tugs at her bag, it's a little strange that she wishes for Zero, of all people, to come and rescue her.

But of course he can't, because he's not in proximity and there's also the fact that he hates her, too, so why would he bother? Eponine tugs at her bag, yanking it back, and the man curses.

"Got anythin' worthy in the bag?" he hisses; his teeth are yellow and crooked and his fingers are knobby, clawing determinedly for her bag. "Are you a rich girl, got lots of wealth from Daddy and no problem showin' it off?"

"Just the opposite," she says, with equal aggressiveness to match. The man halts, his fingers raised high up in the air like he's going to come slashing down; she scrambles backwards, her heart thrashing loudly in her chest and her breathing coming out ragged.

"Are you from the slums?" he asks, and Eponine puts her hand on her beating heart, trying to calm it.

"Yeah," she lies, surprised how easily the word tumbles off her tongue. She kind of likes it, in a sense, and draws herself taller. "Yes, I am."

The man strokes his chin; his eyes are a light blue, chips of ice that hold little emotion. He studies her up and down, and then exhibits his teeth in a grin. "Do you want to be a hero of the slums, then?"

Eponine tilts her head to the side. "Explain." Her voice sounds more powerful than it ever has.

When the man laughs, it sounds dry and more like a cackle, low and dirty. "Borrow things from the rich," he begins idly, and his grin turns wolfish, "give their fancy items to the poor. To the people who _really_ need it."

Somehow Eponine understands that _borrow_ means _steal_ , and it makes her feel half-excited, half-scared. These thefts aren't like the petty ones she made in the Secluded Realms; no, the victims will _know_  they have been stolen from, know that they have been robbed and victimized and there is a very strong chance Eponine would get caught. But at the same time, she'll be _known_. She'll be a thief, an outlaw, someone that people will fear and hate, someone that will cower at the sight of her. And _that_ sounds appealing.  
  
(The other part that appeals to her is the fact it breaks all of Zero's rules; acting out against all his rules, she feels like she is not his daughter anymore, that she has lost that right. And a part of her is secretly glad.)

"Tell me when your first heist is," she says, and the man gives her a genuine smile.

__

 

Eponine hates her father, even more so when she finds out that the outlaws are nothing like Zero has described them to be. He said they were cruel, and selfish, and would leave her for dead if a thievery went wrong. That is not the case with Eponine.

They treat her like their own sister. They tease her, ruffle her hair and make mocking comments about her height, her clothes; they have her wriggle through small spots where they cannot reach, so she can grasp something important, something expensive, something valuable. They congratulate her afterwards, their smiles filling up the dark until Eponine breaks out into a shy smile. It is nice to feel appreciated by them - like she has impressed some incredibly emotionless people. 

The man who recruited her has no name; he prefers to remain anonymous. But sometimes Eponine can feel his eyes on her, when they're about to sneak in a mansion. Once, at the beginning of a robbery, he pulls her aside and takes off something slung across his back; he presses it in her hands and says, "You're going to need it, more than I do." She has never shot before, but she slings it across her back anyways, wearing it proudly. Later, she sees a shadow and fumbles with the arrow, shooting it directly at - at the man who gave her the bow. It snags his cape, misses him by an inch, but there is a proud look in his eyes that tells Eponine she has shot well, she has a knack with a bow and a quiver of arrows. It makes her feel happy, and she is practically skipping all the way back to the bandit hideout.

The outlaws are not perfect, she thinks that night, listening as men inhale and exhale as they sleep. But they are all she has as family, and over Zero, she would pick them in a heartbeat.

__

 

The anonymous thief says, "There's a big mansion comin' up front. Full of rich things, and from what I observed, no guards, nothin'. And the owner is a worthless piece o' shit who lives alone. Sound good?"

The silence that follows is usual, but this time Eponine steps up first. "I'll go," she says, and she hears a few whistles from the crowd, shouts that blur together in nonsensical words. Though the tone sounds excited, when she closes her eyes it sounds more like shouts of anger, rage and disappointment clashed together. She thinks she hears  _your father would hate you for this;_ this is probably her imagination running wild, but it still makes her stomach churn anyways.

She tosses her head up high and breathes in; the air is heavy, clouding her lungs. _Well,_ she thinks, heart twisting, _it's not like he didn't before._


End file.
